The seditious mood of formula one teams is coalescing around one figure in particular: Max Mosley's most senior lieutenant, Alan Donnelly.

Eight teams have put their names to an explosive letter to Mosley, president of the sport's governing body, the FIA, demanding Donnelly's removal as formula one's chairman of the stewards over what they describe as his "conflict of interest".

Donnelly's other formal title is as official representative of the president of the FIA. At a time of high tension between the governing body and the teams, they consider his role as stewards' chairman to be untenable.

"It was apparent during the Turkish grand prix that several discussions were held between the aforementioned person and several formula one team representatives with a clear intention to create division between the Formula One Teams' Association teams by misrepresenting the positions of these teams," said the letter, which has been seen by this column. "This situation raises serious doubts on the autonomy of the judicial functions from the executive functions of the FIA ... It is imperative the chairman of the stewards remains totally impartial and we therefore respectfully request these roles are separated. We trust you will ... act appropriately."

The FIA responded to the letter by saying: "We utterly reject the suggestion in the correspondence received." But the teams will not let the matter rest and, as several sources attest, the letter can be interpreted as a unified fight-back against what they consider to be historical attempts by the FIA to "divide and rule".

Sky's limited scope

The European Commission looks set to slash the value of the Premier League's broadcast rights if Len Blavatnik's Setanta rescue fails. The league put out its contingency-plan invitation to tender yesterday requesting broadcasters to bid for Setanta's two packages for next season. But under current EC competition rules Sky would be limited to bidding for only one. That could cost league clubs tens of millions of pounds since the competitive tension between Sky and Setanta drove the latter to bid £392m for three seasons' football. Without Sky or Setanta to bid against, there would be no point in third parties bidding even close to the current pro-rata estimate of £65m per package. So this column yesterday asked the EC's most senior civil servant for sport, Michal Krejza, if it would relax its ban on Sky bidding for the sixth package and he responded: "The decision by the EC remains valid. We can't be held responsible for business decisions and the case indicates that Setanta made some decisions that were probably not the best."

Helping hand for Gazza

Paul Gascoigne's former captain and manager at Tottenham Hotspur are overseeing his recovery after he publicly fell off the wagon a fortnight ago, although his relapse is said to have been a one-off. Gary Mabbutt and Terry Venables have been instrumental in supporting Gascoigne, having stayed in close contact with the Sporting Chance clinic that previously kept him dry for six months. The pair also secured tens of thousands of pounds in rehab funding from the Tottenham Tribute Trust, with additional contributions from Rangers, Everton's Bill Kenwright, the Professional Footballers' Association, the Football Association and the Premier League. But with so many of the former England midfielder's former clubs rallying round the troubled star, it is odd that his first, Newcastle United, did not contribute.

Another Wembley exit

Darren Berman is set to become the second senior executive to leave Wembley as a result of the cost-cutting merger of operations between the stadium-operating company and the Football Association. Jonathan Gregory, the former marketing director at Wembley National Stadium Ltd, has kept his skills relatively in house with the England 2018 World Cup bid. But the departure of Berman, Wembley's head of legal and corporate affairs, could have further-reaching consequences. Alongside the chief executive, Roger Maslin, and the FA's chief operating officer, Alex Horne, it was Berman who led last year's vital refinancing with the banks. Alistair MacLean, the FA's head of legal services, subsumes his post but so far lacks the specialist relationships with the lenders that Berman built up over six years full-time at WNSL, having previously joined on secondment from the FA's legal team.